by James Axler
“All of the live brass they can carry...” Linderholm shook his head, then burst into a grin. “Is more than fair. Those fragging man-eaters have been a hot nuke up my ass for ages. I couldn’t be happier to learn they’re finally eating dirt.”
“How about we settle for...fifty pounds of guncotton,” J.B. said, removing his hat and straightening the brim. “Along with a month of room and board?”
“Now that’s a deal!” Linderholm chuckled, then spit into a palm.
Removing a glove, J.B. did the same and they shook.
“Done and done,” Fife growled, shifting his AK-47 to the other shoulder. “Now that you folks are going to stay for a while, I’ve got a bottle of some predark shine called whiskey hidden at the Sleepy Dog tavern. I say we crack it open and seal the deal.”
“I’d rather have some food first,” Krysty said honestly.
“Something fresh would be nice,” Mildred added. “That is, as long as it’s anything but fish.”
“Then follow me!” Linderholm shouted, starting down the street. “The Sleepy Dog has got the best fried dog you ever tasted.”
In a loose conglomeration, the two groups proceeded past predark homes, new log cabins and a surprising number of mobile homes anchored in concrete slabs. Constant cheering greeted their appearance, ville folk and sec men waved in greeting, and gaudy sluts kept rushing forward to try to kiss everybody.
“Sinatra eat your heart out,” Mildred said, rubbing crimson lip rouge from a stained cheek.
“Now, I want to hear all of the gory details of the chilling,” Linderholm said. “Leave nothing out.”
Jak shrugged. “We shoot, they fall.”
“A man of few words.” Linderholm chuckled. “You’ll get along just fine with my daughter.”
“Together, they probably have a vocabulary of six, mebbe seven words.” Nye snorted, matching the stride of the much larger baron to stay as close as possible.
“Don’t need lot, if hit bull’s-eye,” Jak stated.
“Damn straight!” Sandara said, slapping him on the back. “Well said!”
In reply, Jak bumped her with a hip. Caught off guard by that, Sandara fiercely blushed and shifted position to walk on the other side of her father. But she kept looking back at Jak.
Deliberately slowing his pace, Doc eased Jak away from the rest of the group. “Careful there, lad,” he whispered. “Unless I am greatly mistaken, Sandara has never been...I mean, she is the baron’s only daughter...”
“Virgie. Yeah, know. Don’t like?”
“Virgins? Nothing wrong with that, dear boy. Everybody was one at some point of their life.”
“No like her?” Jak asked, watching the young woman walk along, chatting with Ryan and Krysty.
“Indeed, I do like her,” Doc said. “However...” He paused, uncertain how to proceed.
“Not born yesterday,” Jak said. “Be gentle, tell truth. Rest, her choice.”
“Please excuse me, dear Jak,” Doc said with a gentle smile. “Sometimes your youth makes me forget that you were once a married man with a family.”
A shadow seemed to cross the albino’s face, then Jak dismissed the memory with a shrug. “Long ago,” he said, moving away to walk alone for a while.
A few blocks later the group reached the Sleepy Dog. A converted prefab hut, the tavern occupied an entire block, and seemed more than capable of holding the entire population of Concord if necessary. A large wooden sign hung above the front door showing the namesake of the tavern.
Inside, the air was pleasantly smoky from three stone fireplaces and a brick hearth, which had fish frying in cast-iron skillets. A dozen redwood picnic tables recovered from a city park were randomly arranged across the spacious floor, and in the far corner, a very old man was softly strumming a guitar. His face was hideously scarred, and a tied bandanna hid whatever remained of his eyes.
“It’s the outlanders!” a short bartender shouted, brandishing a demijohn that sloshed clear fluid. “Drinks are on the house!”
“No, I’m paying for the shine, Peter!” the baron replied, claiming a table. “And my friends want some food first. Anything but fish, right?”
“Nuke you, David!” the bartender shot back. “My tavern, my rules. The outies eat and drink for free.”
Leaving the counter, he hurried over. “What do you want, folks? We got moose, elk, and some nice cow that’s only a day old. Still fresh enough to moo if you get it mad.”
“Anything with horns or hooves,” Ryan said, taking a seat. “One more trout and I’m going to grow gills.”
Everybody in the tavern laughed as if never hearing the old joke. The baron gestured for everyone in his group to take a chair.
Nudging Krysty aside, Jak managed to sit next to Sandara.
“Good work, cut yourself?” Jak asked, pointing at the dumdum rounds.
“Of course!” Sandara said. “That’s the only way to make sure the rounds don’t blow up in your blaster.” Then she softly added, “We have a man in town, Jeff Tannenbaum, like you.”
“What, from bayou?”
“Albino.” Sandara chuckled, resting a hand on his arm. “Not a mutie, just nuking pale.”
Jak smiled. “Most folks not know difference.”
She leaned in closer. “I’m willing to bet a live brass that’s a bad idea.”
“Got that in crosshairs,” Jak stated, gently patting her hand.
Sandara openly blushed at that and quickly said, “Would you like to see my workshop where I cut the rounds?” Her voice faded after that as if speech was no longer possible.
“Aces,” Jak said softly. Standing, he pulled out her chair.
Rising, Sandara blushed again, and they walked out of the tavern together.
“Don’t think we’re going to be seeing either of them for a while,” J.B. said quietly, placing the Uzi on the table. Friendly ville, or not, a close blaster made good sense.
“Here’s to new friends,” Linderholm said, pouring a round of liquor into wooden cups. Tossing off the shot, he poured another. “I hope the boy has stamina.”
“He’s a good man,” Ryan said, leaning back in the chair.
“Certainly hope so,” Linderholm said, taking a sip. “You’ll understand that if I hear her scream, I’m sending in fifty sec men with clubs.”
“But what if Jak is the one yelling for help?” Doc asked with a grin.
Caught in the middle of a swallow, Linderholm nearly choked. “By thunder, I hope he is!” The man laughed.
“I knew Jak liked her from the moment he learned that she cut her own dumdums,” Mildred said with a small smile. Under the table, she bumped J.B. with a knee, and he returned the favor.
“Well, sure,” Fife said, pouring another round. “Man or woman, if you can’t fight, you can’t fuck. What could be plainer than that?”
“I cut my own dumdums,” Nye said, not looking at anybody in particular.
“Yeah, you do,” Fife said, taking a drink. Then he stopped and looked at the village healer as if he had never seen her in the light before. “Damn fine work it is, too,” he said, reaching over to top off her plastic mug.
“I didn’t think you noticed,” Nye whispered.
“Didn’t,” Fife said honestly. “But I do now.”
“Good to know,” Nye replied, fingering the condensation on the outside of the mug.
The colonel rested an arm on the table. “Yes, it is Jody-Lynn.”
Just then, a bevy of busty young serving girls arrived carrying charred wooden platters staked with massive T-bone steaks. The sizzling was audible from yards away.
“Good Lord, those must weight five pounds each!” Mildred gasped, backing away slightly. “We can’t eat these, they’re enormous!”
“Yep, the
best I have!” Peter stated, wiping his hands clean on a towel. “Now, eat up. The second course is a lovely roast of bear.”
“Bring it soon,” Linderholm said, tying a napkin around his neck.
“I could eat a bear roast,” Ricky said confidently, pulling out a small knife. “Anything for dessert?”
“Perhaps a second bear roast?” Doc asked jokingly.
Furrowing his brow, the boy gave the matter some serious consideration when there came the a ringing clang.
“Any chance that’s the dinner bell?” Mildred asked, hope fading on her face. “Or a fire alarm?”
“Nope, invaders,” Fife growled, standing and swinging around the AK-47. He worked the arming bolt and started for the exit. “Razor up, people! Everybody to the wall, the ville is under attack!”
Chapter Seventeen
Exploding out of the tavern, Ryan and the others raced across the ville. Moments later, Jak and Sandara joined them, running up the street. If their clothing was slightly in disarray, nobody was tactless enough to mention the fact.
Everywhere, sec men and civilians were scrambling to their posts: teenagers setting out buckets of water to help fight fires, a group of old sec men loading the pair of Civil War cannons near the gazebo, and a couple of very old women were herding small children into a cellar. Slamming the thick door closed, they sealed it with a padlock, then started stacking rosebushes on top to hide the entrance from casual view.
“They’ve got this down to an exact science,” Mildred noted, sprinting along.
“It’s not our first attack,” Nye answered, checking her blaster. “Baron, do you think it’s the cannies seeking revenge?”
“Already?” Linderholm asked in disbelief, then he relented. “Mebbe it is. Who else would dare to attack my ville after we slaughtered that gang last year?”
“Only that bitch Angstrom,” Fife growled, yanking the napkin from his neck to cast it away.
“Is the Lexington ready, Father?” Sandara asked.
“Ready as she’ll ever be,” the baron replied.
“Is that some sort of weapon?” Ryan asked.
Looking sideways, Linderholm gave him a brief smile, but said nothing.
Reaching the entrance to the ville, the companions saw that the locals were preparing for a full-scale war, not just a fight. A gaudy slut was holding a large wicker basket filled with paper cartridges and flints. As the sec men raced by, another girl would give each of them a handful.
Directly above the front gate, a team of bare-chested men was sweating and cursing to work the crank on a giant crossbow. Ryan recalled that Doc called the weapon an arbalest. The drawstring was braided cable as thick as his thumb, and as it locked into place, a sec woman carefully loaded a sharpened baseball bat.
“The first one has her name on it, Baron!” a waving sec man called out.
“Literally!” the sec woman added, lifting the bat high to display the crudely carved letters.
Flicking a bullwhip, a burly sec man was driving a team of struggling horses to drag a huge limestone block along the ground. As he reached the gate, he stopped the horses and freed the reins. Immediately a group of girls darted forward to start hammering wooden stakes into the ground to help anchor the colossal doorstop.
“Smart, even if the gate is breached, they still can’t get in,” Krysty noted, the M-16 held in both hands.
“Or us get out,” Ricky added nervously, licking dry lips.
“This is no time to leave. The balloon is going up!” J.B. growled, thumbing fresh shells into his shotgun. Then he added, “Would you really want to leave these people?”
After a moment Ricky stood a little taller. “No,” he said with new determination.
J.B. slapped him on the back. “Good lad!”
Everybody got out of the way as Baron Linderholm and his people started climbing the wooden stairs going up the wall. Ryan and the companions followed close behind.
Reaching the top, everybody spread out to get a look, and not offer any snipers a nice group shot.
“Blind Norad, that’s a nuking army out there,” Linderholm muttered, holding out a hand. A sec man slapped a Navy monocular into his palm.
“Angstrom?” J.B. asked, adjusting his glasses.
“And I suspect most of her sec men,” Ryan answered grimly.
Filling the breach in the outer bulwark was a large crowd of armed men surrounding a LAV-25.
“Gods of the atom, they’re all carrying rapid-fires and pipe bombs...” Linderholm muttered, dialing for better focus.
Abruptly, Sandara turned. “You! They’re here for you!”
“Told you had trouble in highlands,” Jak stated truthfully.
“Exactly what kind of trouble?” Fife demanded, carefully loading a 40 mm shell into the gren launcher attached underneath the AK-47 assault rifle.
“Ryan aced an elk, and King Angstrom come out of the bushes claiming it belonged to him,” Krysty said, pulling a gren from a pocket, and removing the duct tape from the arming level. “We offered to share the meat, but then he saw our blasters and attacked. He was killed.”
“Yeah, that sounds like Angstrom,” Linderholm said, returning the Navy monocular. “He always did like to take what belonged to others—elks, wives, villes, he didn’t care.”
“Might makes right,” Mildred said mockingly. “That was the philosophy of the Nazi party.”
“Never herd of that ville, but for a king he was a nuking big coward,” Fife added. “Never did like to attack from the front.”
“The bastard was yellow as week-old piss,” Nye added, working the top bolt on a boxy MAC 10 machine pistol. “His wife was the true ruler. Bitch. Guess she’s in charge for real now.”
“Bad range,” Jak noted.
“Weak hands, the curse of a healer.”
“Ain’t it the truth,” Mildred said, hefting her assault rifle. “Best thing about the M-16 is a near lack of recoil.”
“Triple smooth,” Jak agreed, tucking a spare magazine into a shirt pocket for easy access.
“No recoil? How is that possible?” Sandara asked skeptically.
An amplified voice boomed from a loudspeaker bolted to the side of the APC. “Send me the outlander named Ryan, and I will leave. The Granite Empire has no feud with Concord!”
“Low, not zero,” Jak said, working the arming bolt. “Has ‘hot gas’ bolt chamber.”
“What?”
“Explain later,” he growled, taking aim.
A corporal turned. “With your permission, Baron?” he asked eagerly.
Linderholm waved a hand.
“Hey, Angstrom!” the sec man snarled, leveling his flintlock and firing. “Kiss my hairy ass!”
The weapon boomed, issuing a huge cloud of gray smoke, a dagger of flame extending for almost a yard. A split second later the miniball harmlessly ricocheted off the armored hull of the APC.
“Damn, it’s not painted wood.” Nye sighed, lowering her weapon. “That is real predark armor.”
“Best we’ve ever seen,” Ryan added bluntly.
“The Fire Hammer can’t be harmed by any weapon you own,” Queen Angstrom boasted over the loudspeaker. “Give me Ryan and we will leave in peace!”
“Mutie shit!” Fife bellowed. “Like that bitch is gonna just go away...after bringing an army to our front gate!”
“Angstrom is so twisted,” Mildred added, “she eats soup with a corkscrew!”
That invoked a gale of laughter from the sec men on the wall, and somber faces brightened.
“Any suggestions on how we should proceed?” Linderholm asked, pulling out a fat 40 mm shell from the leather pouch. Opening the breech of the gren launcher, he shoved in the shell and gently closed the weapon. “A straight attack, or to lure
them closer?”
“Straight attack,” Sandara returned, hefting an AK-101 assault rifle. Her Kalashnikov was nearly identical to the one carried by her father, except that it had a folding wire stock and possessed a 12-gauge shotgun bolted under the main barrel rather than a grenade launcher.
“Lure the crazy bitch closer,” Fife said with a cruel laugh.
“Do we get a say in this?” Ryan asked gruffly.
“No,” Linderholm stated. “You’re guests in my ville, so protecting you is my job.” Then he smiled. “Not that I’d mind if you lend a hand when the lead starts flying.”
“Deal,” J.B. agreed, working the stubby arming bolt on the Uzi machine pistol.
“Baron Linderholm!” The queen’s voice boomed once more. “The outlanders are assassins who chilled my husband while he slept! Give them to me for execution, and we will leave in peace. My quarrel is not with you, or this ville!”
The sec men on the wall responded with catcalls and amazingly rude gestures.
Going to a wooden supply box, Fife flipped up the lid and moved aside the tray of paper cartridges for the flintlocks, to withdraw a fat pistol with a stubby barrel.
“Yeah, just keep talking, bitch,” Fife growled, cracking open the breech and shoving in a long 20 mm cartridge. “Waste all the time you like.” With a jerk of his wrist, he closed the weapon.
“We knew this day was coming years ago,” Nye added confidently, “and made plans.”
“How stop last wag?” Jak asked, looking down at the Civil War cannons in the park, and up at the giant crossbow above the gate.
“We have a war wag of our own,” Fife said, aiming the blaster at the open sky, then stroking the trigger.
The gun belched smoke, the 20 mm shell going high. As it started to curve back down, the magnesium charge detonated and exploded into a brilliant green fireball.
Doc frowned. “Your war wag is outside the ville?”
“Has to be,” Fife replied, reloading the flare gun.
“Well?” Queen Angstrom loudly demanded. “Last chance, old man!”
“Enough of this shit. Give ’em hell, boys!” Baron Linderholm bellowed through cupped hands.
